NEWS
N-Gage 2.0 is Coming

http://media.1up.com/media?id=3186390

Crazy handheld gaming taco -- back from the dead for round 2?
By Mark Whiting, 02/05/2007
Hey, remember N-Gage? That crazy taco shaped thingie from Nokia that you could use to make phone calls on with when you weren't playing a bizarro-world platform version of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory?

Yeah, we don't either. NEVERTHELESS... crazy comeback news has surfaced on the Internets today: N-Gage is back baby!

A recent newspost over at the Nokia N-Gage official blog dropped some hints about the incoming device, tentatively referred to hereafter as N-Gage 2.0. There's not a whole lot of info there at the moment, besides the fact that both EA Mobile and Gameloft have promised to support the thing in bringing "the biggest franchises and hottest mobile games included in the N-Gage experience" to your sweaty little hands.

One might rightly question the consumer wisdom of maintaining the N-Gage brand through round 2 (the current gaming zeitgeist putting "N-Gage 2.0" only slightly ahead of "Exxon Valdez 2.0" as far as commercial successes and fond marketplace memories are concerned). Nonetheless -- it's interesting to hear that Nokia isn't down for the count.

During its mayfly-like lifespan, the N-Gage did actually have a small number of excellently reviewed games, including the infectious Pocket Kingdom: Own the World. It'll be interesting to see whether Nokia will be re-visiting some of these live-fast die-young franchises in its new incarnation -- though though whether the company is ready to butt heads with both the DS and PSP (and Zune?) in the same ring is anybody's guess. Guess we'll see in 2008 -- that's the year slated on the news page for the device's big debut.